Chapter 118

Throughout the Ages.

Brewer’s Reputation: 403

The Alchemist arrived with sweat on his brow. He clapped his hands to clear his palms of forest debris.

Barnaby paid him no mind. “Please, Mr. Ballow. Thrush is the system—he will become the new system. Soon. Very soon. Introduce us for the sake of mankind. We must speak to him before the next evolution of existence comes to pass!”

The Alchemist made a grand gesture of weariness and rolled his eyes. “You twit. This again? A nightream is a monster, not a system. If you actually had the welfare of man in mind, studying the dreambon would be your most pressing quest!”

Barnaby stumbled to his feet. “Call me a twit one more time!”

Thomas darted between the men and looked imploringly up at Barnaby. “Master, you taught me that anger leaves a hot-blooded scrim over the mind’s eye. An Otus Scholar sees beyond malice. …Please Master. You know how you get around Jasper.”

Like Thomas was but a passing fly, the two men ignored him and began talking over the other. They weren’t quite raising their voice; they were whisper-shouting. Thomas turned his back to the men and smiled at me, chagrinned.

Rubbing the back of his head, Thomas said, “Passion fuels one’s purpose! Obviously, this pilgrimage means more than life to Master Whittlebeethus.”

The two men delved a few paces further down the ridge. To Thomas I said, “Are they always like this? You must’ve been exhausted on your journey here.”

“I’ve learned to keep them as far apart as the eastern and western sea corridors.”

On another matter, I was curious. “What about you? Do you think Thrush has anything to do with the system?”

Thomas dropped to his knees and muscled the tome open. He had to handle each page with a full fist. The edges were wrinkled, and he could only turn maybe twenty at a time.

“See here, Mr. Ballow,” he said.

I crouched. “Hawkin is fine with me. No need for formalities.”

Thomas handled a few stacks of pages. “I would be thoroughly lectured if Master Whittlebeethus overhears me calling you anything other than Mr. Ballow.” He shook his hand out, stretched his fingers, and then grappled more pages. “This is what I want to show you. Will you hold this for a moment?”

While I balanced the tome in my arms, Thomas fetched rug-thick cloth. He whipped the cloth flat and draped it upon the ground. Together we set the tome down, careful not to crush our fingers. Dappled afternoon sunlight slipped over the illuminations. Upon the odd numbered page was an illustration of a…fish-bear.

Thomas whispered reverently. “This is the first recorded instance of the nightream: ‘The tale of the awakening eyes’.” He slid his finger one foot across the page and stopped it beneath an ornate word that looked like it had been written with wrought iron filigree. …Was that why the tome was so heavy? Illuminations were scribed with metals?

“This word here translates to ‘world-eater’. The nightream is said to have tasted everything in existence. During the reign of King Austen the Catalyst, he encountered the nightream while in the gallop of a hunt. Curiosity piqued, he pursued the creature. The nightream fought against the king and his men with unparalleled strength and power. Now, this sentence here translates to ‘oblivious to pain and mortal wound’.”

Illustrated lances by the dozens pierced through the body of the nightream. A flood of humans battled it. On the next page, the nightream had fattened considerably, and even more lances pierced through its fur. On the next page, even greater detail had gone into the illumination. The next pages were gatefold pages. As soon as Thomas unfolded the pages out past the cloth, like he was slamming open double doors of a cathedral, I understood why they were gatefolds. The nightream’s bulbous bulging body needed the two extra pages of space. Its size dwarfed the humans, and the lances seemed more like whiskers.

Thomas massaged his probably sore palms. “Every one of the king’s men was viciously eaten. Over a hundred were said to have followed the king on his hunt that day. King Austen the Catalyst was spared, by the will of the gods.”

On the next set of gatefold pages, a figure—which was clearly a most lavish depiction of the king—stood at the foot of the planet-round nightream. The nightream’s mouth was open and its maw seemed as big as the moon.

“That’s this part?” I said.

“And this word roughly translates to ‘almighty scream’. This next one is something like ‘shaking earth’. The nightream is said to have swayed all the trees in the forest with his mighty roar.”

I was able to hold back my laughter, but not a smile. “Huh, I recognize that stance. Thrush does that to brace himself against an awesomely huge burp.”

Thomas regarded me blankly, and he blinked. “…This is serious, Mr. Ballow.” He dropped his gaze to the map of the battle aftermath. “Look at the detail in the mouth.”

I recognized the finger-thick fangs that fenced the bottom of the page above the king. Those fangs hung like icicles at the top of the page. Instead of a warty toad-ish tongue, there was a hill-shaped sea of blood strewn with floating human parts. Limbs flopped with leaping fish. Head-filled helmets pooled in the troughs of waves.

Behind the sea was an island, flourishing with flora. A sun was setting beside the island, and in the middle of the sun hundreds of tree branches were silhouetted. The branches were filled with all manner of animal: from monkey to elephant; from starfish to leopard. The roof of the nightream’s mouth was no mouth at all. It was a swirl of cloud-shaped gods who looked out in face-grasping fear and agony.

Thomas flicked his eyes up at me for a moment, and then he pulled up the next page and pushed it over. The following illumination was simply double-paged. The king’s face was in the center, and his eyes reflected all that he saw. Complex filigree flew from the king’s head. There were numbers, myriad symbols, the names of gods, inlaid malachite Fable Stones, and ancient words.

“The sheer terror which King Austen the Catalyst experienced, opened his mind to the very first imprint of the system, which he passed on to his great armies. Thus his moniker. This is the first record of the system!”

“These are just myths,” I said.

“Scholars do not dismiss records as mere myths. Truths are hidden in the shadows of fantasy. The wise men of Otus are able to illuminate the wisdom in these long forgotten tales and share them with the world. This is a recorded instance of the nightream monster, Mr. Ballow! And my master has deciphered its true meaning!”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“I mean…” and I scratched my head. “There are some similarities…”

“What’s unique about the nightream is that they appear in the oldest of records. The first of records! They are documented by civilizations that are worlds apart. No other creature appears in ancient historical records as universally as the nightream. What spectacular things he must have witnessed so long ago in history!”

“Well, Thrush has talked about a time when the world was very different. He’s mentioned the stars, the earth, the way things smelled and tasted.”

Thomas took a look over his shoulder at the arguing men. He seemed to shrink from them for a moment before turning back to me. He lowered his voice even more. “I have some private questions I’d love to ask him. But they are insignificant to the mysteries that my Master wishes to uncover.”

“I gotta say, it’s really hard to talk to Thrush about his past. He stares off in thought, and he rarely ever answers. I’ve never pressed him to tell me more than he’s willing.”

“We must try, because Thrush may be the only living witness to the origin of humanity. I tell you this with utmost certainty, Mr. Ballow: The records we have of the nightream are not retellings of an old tale. Whereas all other records of mythological creatures are merely reimagined stories of the same legend, each record of the nightream is unique. For example, the Pinthus appears throughout history. The intent of its story is to teach young children to respect their elders. But when the nightream appears, it is always as a sighting, with no purpose to teach a lesson or perpetuate a belief.”

Put that way, that was an interesting anomaly. “I can see where you’re coming from.”

“Wouldn’t it be something to hear Thrush’s telling of the birth of mankind? Please; try to understand the significance of such a perspective.”

A lovely strong voice rose above the midday’s camp. Abigail was calling for a return to trail-management. Ah, a rescue!

I stood and brushed debris from my pants. Not a moment later, adventurers must have immediately gone to work because a tree crashed at the head of the trail. A flock of birds shot from the tree and circled above us. They split back down into the trees. A few alighted on the ridge a few paces away. One of the birds tilted its head at me. I mused that perhaps I seemed familiar to it. Perhaps I’d fed it before?

“Well, it’s about time I got back to it. Thank you for the tale, Thomas.”

“Wait! Please, Mr. Ballow. Let me fetch my master.”

Thomas, like a nervous puppy, tried to interrupt the argument. Barnaby turned lurid eyes at his apprentice. “Just a moment, Thomas. Today is the day I settle things with this imposter once and for all!”

Tail between his legs, Thomas scurried back over, stammering and wringing his hands. “My apologies, Mr. Ballow. I-” His stomach gurgled with a twist like it was wringing a wet cloth.

“Have you had a chance to eat?” I said.

“Meeting with the nightream is Master’s sole life purpose, Mr. Ballow.”

I’d been saving the bread the adventurers had made over the past few days, but what would it hurt to share some? With all that Thomas had to deal with, maybe he needed an excuse to scarf something down. I gestured that we should sit, and I shared bread with him. Crumbs tumbled a few feet down the ridge, and the nearby birds flew to our feet. A couple more birds landed nearby. They stared at us from their profiles.

Thomas gazed at his bread. “Tell me…what’s your purpose?”

After our conversation, I was too beat to get deep with him. I simply took a deep breath and tore at my bread.

“My apologies again, Mr. Ballow. It’s not my place to ask such a question of you.”

“That’s all right, Thomas.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Right now, my purpose is to finish this trail. Eat, and please enjoy the ridge for a while longer.”

I stood and stretched. Instead of eating, and despite another stomach rumble, Thomas crumbled his bread and tossed the bits to the birds.

Then his tone changed. He seemed somewhat more like himself when he said, “Have you always wanted to be a Brewer?”

Something in that change made me pause and sit down again.

“I had no idea what I wanted to do.”

“How did you end up all the way out here?”

“It had everything I wanted.”

“You just up and chose to make a home here?”

“To put it simply, yes.”

“I wish things had been simple like that for me.”

We looked into each other’s eyes for a moment. It was not so much a look of understanding, but more so a look of presence. That pure presence lasted a moment before he seemed to return to his thoughts. I gave him space by silence.

He fed his bread to the birds. “I wish I’d known how to survive in the wild. But I didn’t. All I ever knew was the city where I was born. I taught myself how to steal, and the people at the Otus cathedral had more food than they needed.”

Barnaby and Jasper raised their voices in sudden tension. They must have noticed that the heat of their exchange drew our attention because they paused and gave us the most bullshit smiles I had ever seen. Then they returned to whisper-shouting.

“Master Whittlebeethus isn’t all that bad, you know. He’s obsessive at times, and he can be moody, and he might say things that are sharp, and he occasionally gets very loud when he shares his favorite teaching…But he’s been really good to me.”

“How long have you known him?”

“The order of Otus are all scholars of familial lines. Fourteen families comprise the order. Well, fourteen before I came along.”

Ah. “So they caught you stealing, and you still owe them.”

Thomas leaned over. “I got too good to get caught.”

The birds kicked the leaves on the ridge. They danced and made small circling flights at our feet. Thomas’ share of bread was dwindling.

“Master knew I was ‘feral,’ as the other families called it. He would go out of his way to share food with me. Said I reminded him of the son he lost. Like I said, I was never caught stealing; but he must’ve known what I was doing. He was easy to talk to because he was the only one who talked to me.”

I eyed the bickering men. “Otherwise, he’s not the easiest to talk to?”

Thomas looked away. “His theories have given him a high rank among the order. I think that’s the only reason he was able to convince the others to take me in. Technically, I make up the fifteenth familial line. He really fought for that.”

“He means a lot to you.”

“There are so many volumes that speak of the heroics of people at the order of Otus—too many to read within a lifetime. Those stories are nice; I’ve seen lots of people inspired by them, but to me, Master’s kindness represents the best of humanity …Being taught how to read…Being given some warm food and a place to sleep at night…Just having someone to talk to…I know the very definition of life-changing.”

In the following pause, the forest filled with the sound of folk working together.

I reflected on the day I met Thrush. I remembered being excited to talk to him when I learned he spoke the same language. Time had since flown by in the company of Thrush, Barnacle-eyes, and in Abigail’s arms. I listened for her voice and thought I heard her doling directions.

“The creatures and people we meet have a funny way of changing our lives, don’t they,” I said.

“Do you think mankind has changed the nightream’s life throughout history?”

“Oh yeah. People have definitely changed him, inside and out.”

“Mr. Ballow…” Thomas chewed his lower lip. He shifted and appeared quite uncomfortable in his own skin. “…Hawkin, about what I’ve shared with you; will you please not say anything to my Master?”

“Not a word. And about Thrush... I’ll talk to him when I see him, but I can’t promise anything.”

Thomas sighed like he was setting down heavy burlap sacks of potatoes which he’d been carrying for months. He came alive then and began telling me about his life, his aspirations, and his voice was wide with wonder and spirit.

Eventually Abigail appeared at the bottom of the ridge. “Looking a little too cozy up there! Come give us a hand!”

Scholars arrived beside her and called for Barnaby and Thomas.

We all descended. The birds took flight. Jasper took his clumsy descent beside me.

“Hawkin, sir. Alchemists have curated many a life-saving item. Cure wounds, cure poison; healing the afore unhealable… I wanted to speak with you about the dreambon. By Forgan, we must study this item. It may have the potential to save countless lives, to better our existence!”

It was much more humid down in the trees, and I swatted a couple mosquitos that sought me straight away.

While Jasper went on and on, I withdrew my axe from my inventory and laid the handle against my shoulder. It was back to chopping trees and slapping lumantium plaster onto bark.